Falstaff slowly made his way back into what was left of the village.  The mutant attack hadn't lasted long.  Mutants were slow to adjust their tactics, but eventually they did.  They had been hitting all of the Thundercat's allies recently, quick raids that seemed to have no objective.  They would swoop in, strafe the people and burn their homes, and then fly away before any reprisals
could be made against them.  The Thundercats seemed dumbfounded by the whole affair.

Falstaff wasn't though.  He made his way around the tall, bubbling pillars of black smoke that bled together to form a canopy over the town.  The fires were dying down, but they still emitted a collective rumble, which was occasionally was penetrated by a wail of loss from one of the squealing pigs.

Falstaff half expected Lion-O to be off chasing the mutant flying ships, but soon enough he caught sight of the young Thunderan.  Over the days, Lion-O had learned a bit of sewing, and had managed to create a fair facimile of Tabbot clothing for himself, but just from sheer height alone the lad stuck out in a crowd like a boil.

*He looks almost heroic like this,* Falstaff mused.  Some people ran from fires.  Lion-O seemed to be one of those rare individuals that ran towards them.  He was at the head of a chain of pigs passing buckets of water forward to be used against a raging flame that was belching from the remains of a two story house.  It was a lost cause, but there he was, throwing these little
buckets of water at it anyway.

A steady whining sound split the air.  Pigs scattered everywhere as they thought the mutants were returning to do more damage.  Lion-O looked like he was going to stand and fight for a moment, but then a visible look of recognition found its way to his soot mired face.  It was a Thunderan vehicle coming.  Now Lion-O fled from sight.

The vehicle was wide and flat.  It was shaped almost like a cat, and even had mock teeth and claws.  It's blocky wings cut through the plumes of smoke, and a stream of foam belched out of a cannon in its underbelly, burying the burning frame of the house in a fountain of foam.

One by one the Tabbot's homes were doused, and little by little the pigs drew themselves up and out of their hidey holes to stare up at the friendly craft. It seemed to roar gently and the long, claw tipped struts dropped down.  The pitch of the whining noise changed, and the hovering craft touched down to the ground.

A canopy hood popped open, and a lone figure stood up and into sight to address the crowd.  Lion-O recognized the figure as Tygra.  Barely.  He seemed more slender than he remembered him, older.  His face and eyes had a hollow cast to them that made Lion-O bristle.

"The fires are out," declared Tygra in a low, serious voice.  "As soon as our sensors detected the smoke we came out to help."  After a slight pause, and a twitch of his mouth, he went on.  "Was it the mutants that did this?"

An affirmative shout rose from the crowd of pigs.  "What are you going to do about it?" cried a female Tabbot, and older one by the look of her.  Lion-O judged that she had been crying, and guessed she had lost either a home or family or both during the attack.  The crowd seemed to latch on to this sentiment, and angry cries echoed her desperate one.  "What are you going to
do about it?"

Tygra seemed slightly taken aback.  "Well...we could install an early warning device here as we did at the Treetop Kingdom, that way if you should come under attack we could--"

The crowd roared out in disapproval.  "I heard the Warrior Maiden's homes are burning too!" cried a voice.  "We want revenge!" cried another.

Tygra raised his arms in a weak attempt and pacifying the crowd that was slowly but surely becoming an angry mob.  "Revenge is not the Thundercat way!" he said loudly, willing the Tabbots to understand.  "We will do everything we can to protect you, but we will not break our code."

A thunderstrom of snorting erupted from the agitated pigs.  "The Thundercat way is to do nothing!" came an enraged shout.  The othe pigs roared with approval.  "Will you leave a warrior here to guard us?  Then we will be safe!"

Tygra began to look increasingly lost as the pigs seemed to get angrier and louder.  "That would be unwise!  If a Thundercat was put on duty here, our other allies would demand the same treatment.  If we were spread that thin we would be easy targets for our own enemies!"

"And in the meantime our homes burn!"  Another voice joined the chorus.  "Who are you to speak for the Thundercats?  Are you the Lord?"

"There is no Lord of the Thundercats," said Tygra.  "I bear The Sword of Omens, but we are ruled by a council now.  No more kings."

"This never happened when Lion-O ruled!"
"We want protection!"
"Revenge!"
"I heard the Berbils struck a deal with the mutants!"
"Maybe the mutants would leave us alone if we just--"

"Stop!" roared Lion-O, and all eyes, including Tygra's, looked to him in surprise.  "Go back to Cats Lair, Tygra.  This is not a place for you anymore."  The voice held such an edge of authority that the entire crowd fell silent.

"With all due respect, Lion-O, you are no longer my lord," said Tygra.  At first he seemed uncertain, but his confidense grew by the second.  "You don't speak for these people."

"Don't I?"  Falstaff's words came back to Lion-O.  *If I had your body I'd be running this place.*  "Tabbots, hear me!  I, Lion-O, will help you find your revenge.  I'll need brave volunteers to come with me.  Together we will assualt Castle Plundarr and bring the mutants to their knees!"

The crowd of pigs murmured quietly.  They seemed nervous now.  Revenge was all well and good when someone else had to do it, but doing it themselves, that was something completely different.  Tygra just stared at Lion-O in mute horror.  "Lion-O, even though you are no longer our Lord, you are still Thunderan!  The Code--"

"--Is meaningless.  The Code of Thundera has shackled us for too long.  The Code prevented us from destroying the mutants once and for all, and in turn they massacred our people, and now they make war on the innocents of Third Earth just because they associate with us.  No more!"

The murmuring grew less nervous, caught up in the power, the forcefulness of Lion-O's words.  "I'm with you!" said a young pig with a smoke blackened face. One of the town guards held up his sword.  "If you'll fight for my people, Lion-O, then so will I!"

The crowd cheered, and more and more pigs stepped forward, volunteering their courage and their weapons in service to Lion-O.  He gathered them around him with a joyous look, and together they began to make their plans.  Lion-O radiated a contagious confidense that swept through the entire populace.  He was beaming.

Tygra looked on with a tight-lipped, helpless rage.  Quietly he sat back down and closed the canopy, and the hovering vehicle picked up off the ground with a quiet roar and a rising cloud of dust, and then it was gone.  The crowd jeered the Thundercat as he flew away.

Falstaff looked on with grim disapproval and skulked away, muttering to himself.

And far away, dead crimson eyes, sunken into decaying sockets gazed down at the scene as it played out in a bubbling cauldron of caustic liquid.  Cracked lips tightened into a thoughtful frown.  The ancient demon played out the possibilities in his mind, weighing the likely outcomes.

"Mr. Bones," he finally rasped.  "Lion-O may have proven himself a threat.  It can not be chanced.  Destroy him.  Destroy his pathetic army."  Mumm-Ra's lips twitched.  This wasn't what he had wanted, but he had underestimated Lion-O too many times in the past to do so again.

"Go...now," he whispered.  The only answer was a low hiss.  Mumm-Ra's red robes fluttered lightly as a sharp wind seemed to pass him.  His servant deployed, the ancient creature peered back into the cauldron.  "Show me the death of Lion-O," he commanded it softly.